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"Snake Goddess" or a priestess performing a ritual. Minoan religion was the religion of the Bronze Age Minoan civilization of Crete.In the absence of readable texts from most of the period, modern scholars have reconstructed it almost totally on the basis of archaeological evidence such as Minoan paintings, statuettes, vessels for rituals and seals and rings.
The symbol also appears on Minoan sealstones, [4] often accompanied by double axes and bucrania, which are part of the iconography of Minoan bull sacrifice. Horns of consecration are among the cultic images painted on the Minoan coffins called larnakes, sometimes in isolation; they may have flowers between the horns, or the labrys. [5]
Other notable examples of the motif in Germanic art include one of the Torslunda plates, and helmets from Vendel and Valsgärde. [14] In the art of Mesopotamia the motif appears very early, usually with a "naked hero", for example at Uruk in the Uruk period (c. 4000 to 3100 BC), but was "outmoded in Mesopotamia by the seventh century BC". [15]
Minoan art is often described as having a fantastical or ecstatic quality, with figures rendered in a manner suggesting motion. Little is known about the structure of Minoan society. Minoan art contains no unambiguous depiction of a monarch, and textual evidence suggests they may have had some other form of governance.
The earliest known Kamares ware pottery was made during the Middle Minoan IA period (c. 2100-1925 BCE). In this era, the style already made use of polychromy. [1] Examples from this period have been found at Mochlos and Vasiliki in eastern Crete, at Patrikies in the Messara Plain, as well as in the West Court of the palace at Knossos.
However, according to Bietak, the techniques used and the style and motifs employed leave no doubt that the artists were Minoan. [2] The technique of using lime plaster in two layers with a highly polished surface, fresco in combination with stucco, all are techniques that are not Egyptian but are first seen in Minoan paintings.
Since wood and textiles have decomposed, the best-preserved (and most instructive) surviving examples of Minoan art are its pottery, palace architecture (with frescos which include "the earliest pure landscapes anywhere"), [3] small sculptures in various materials, jewellery, metal vessels, and intricately-carved seals.
The EM IIA and IIB Vasiliki Ware, named for the Minoan site in eastern Crete, [19] has mottled glaze effects, early experiments with controlling color, but the elongated spouts drawn from the body and ending in semicircular spouts show the beginnings of the tradition of Minoan elegance (Examples 1, Examples 2). The mottling was produced by ...